Tehran takes a realist perspective they refuse to engage in negotiations because they believe they will be able to get

t better terms later as their relative strength increases.

Tony Karon. Could Iran's Defiance of Western Nuclear Demands be a Rational Choice? TIME.com. June 15, 2011. <http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/06/15/could-irans-defiance-of-western-nuclear-demands-be-a-rational-choice/>

Despite mounting pressure on Tehran to engage in substantial negotiations over its nuclear program, no serious analyst is expecting a diplomatic breakthrough any time soon. After all, the Iranian leadership continues to signal defiance despite sanctions pressure, and the ferocious power struggle currently underway within the Tehran regime militates against any near-term strategic change of course. But there's another, more telling reason why Iran shows little interest in reaching a compromise deal to break the standoff right now: A cold-eyed realist assessment by Tehran's leaders that their position grows stronger while America's grows weaker in the course of the current deadlock. Just as Washington is waiting for the effect of sanctions to weaken Iran's resolve, so are Iranian leaders waiting for the Arab Spring uprisings to further weaken the position of the U.S. and its allies in the region.
China and Russia this week both criticized Tehran's conduct, and urged it to get serious about talks. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be "more constructive" in dealing with the international community on Iran's nuclear program. And China's President Hu Jintao, the previous day, had urged Ahmadinejad to "take substantial steps" to promote dialogue to resolve the standoff. Moscow and Beijing's concern may be U.S. efforts to escalate sanctions pressure on Iran, which Russia and China believe will do no good. Ahmadinejad assured his Russian hosts that he was ready to rejoin talks with world powers, but he also made clear in recent days that nothing they could offer would persuade Iran to halt uranium enrichment. In fact, Iran announced an intensification of enrichment efforts at its reinforced mountain facility at Fordo, designed to protect it from air attack. Unless the U.S. and its partners are prepared to ease their demands on Iran -- highly unlikely, right now -- no breakthrough is expected even if talks are resumed.

Some gloomy commentators suggested that recent events suggest an Iranian nuclear weapon is now inevitable, with Iran having established that it can withstand the pressures that the West brings to bear. But others, including a group of six former ambassadors to Iran from Western powers, believe Iran is pursuing the capacity to create a weapon, but stopping short of actually building one.
"In terms of international law, the position of Europe and the United States is perhaps less assured than is generally believed," the ambassadors wrote. Despite Iran's obligation to satisfy transparency concerns raised by the IAEA, they argue, "nothing in international law or in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty forbids the enrichment of uranium... In Iran, this activity is submitted to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. These inspections, it is true, are constrained by a safeguards agreement dating from the 1970s. But it is also true that the IAEA has never uncovered in Iran any attempted diversion of nuclear material to military use." The current assessment of the U.S. intelligence community remains that while Iran is aggressively pursuing the technological capability to do so, "We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons." Thus the words of U.S. Director of National Intelligence Gen. James Clapper briefing the Senate Intelligence Committee last February. Iran's nuclear decision -making is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran, Clapper added, noting that Tehran's leadership would undoubtedly consider Iran's security, prestige and influence, as well as the international political and security environmen t when making decisions about its nuclear program. The problem, of course, is that right now, even a national-interests realpolitik perspective in Tehran may prompt the regime to hold off on making any major agreements with the U.S. and its allies. Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi, writing in the Cairo Review of Global Affairs, suggest that there is, in fact, a cold logic behind Iran's current defiance: "Tehran has long viewed the Washington-Tel Aviv-Riyadh alliance as a declining power in the region. As such, Iranian

government reluctance to negotiate with America has not necessarily been rooted in an ideological opposition to the idea of talking or improving relations with Washington. Instead, hard-liners in Tehran fear that any relationship with the U.S. would require Iranian acquiescence to status quo regional policies."
That means, they argue, that Tehran perceives the Arab Spring as accelerating the decline of American power in the region -- a process they hope to encourage. And why cut a deal now when you believe you could get better terms later, when your adversary is weaker? Thus, Parsi and Marashi write:

"Iran's perception of the U.S.-Israeli-Saudi [alliance] as a declining regional power incapable of shifting its policies in accordance with a new power distribution seems to have cemented. Although the proverbial political and
economic screws have been tightened through sanctions to increase Iran's international isolation, the Islamic Republic is paradoxically less isolated regionally. Iran's measured confidence vis--vis the U.S.-Israeli-Saudi [alliance] is further reinforced by the fall of pro-American dictatorships in Egypt and Tunisia; volatility across the region that has destabilized countless others; empowered pro-Iranian political factions ruling Iraq and Lebanon; and Iran's indispensible role in any long-term solution to stabilize American national security interests in nonproliferation, terrorism, energy security, Afghanistan, Iraq, and even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

The Iranian leadership perceives the Obama Administration as being willing only to make tactical shifts in U.S. policy, rather than a strategic turnaround that accepts the permanency of Iran's regime and its status as a regional power -- a shift, Parsi and Marashi note, that is unlikely given pressure from Israel, the Saudis and Capitol Hill. "Thus, going forward, Iran will likely prefer to discard the notion of rapprochement with America that Iranian reformists entertained, and instead maintain the strategic objective of hastening Washington's military exit from the region." And as things stand, the U.S. and its allies are waiting for sanctions and other forms of pressure to make Iran more amenable to Washington's terms. Either way, the stalemate appears increasingly likely to remain unbroken for years to come.

Irans nuclear program is not offensive their proliferation is a defense mechanism against nuclear powers who use their arsenals to achieve their own foreign policy objectives used to encourage global disarmament.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi. Iran takes up the nuclear cudgel. Asia Times. June 17, 2011. < http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MF17Ak02.html>

Focusing on the faulty nuclear doctrine of the US and other nuclear powers, such as France and the United Kingdom, that rely on nuclear arsenals to punch hard power relevant to their foreign policy objectives, the Tehran conference gave the Iranian hosts an opportunity to throw the limelight on Israel's clandestine nuclear arsenal, its refusal to join the NPT and its lack of support for a Middle East nuclear weapons-free zone - an idea fully endorsed by Iran. The international community should push Israel to join the NPT and accept IAEA inspections at its nuclear facilities, Salehi said. He also described the United States as the major violator of the NPT, saying its active role in spreading nuclear weapons was incongruous with its advocacy of non-proliferation. These remarks were followed on Wednesday with the news that Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad had once again expressed readiness for talks over Tehran's nuclear program.
''The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran has once again announced Iran's readiness to [resolve] our country's nuclear issue through negotiations with the P5+1 [the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany],'' he told reporters in Tehran. He also reiterated, ''Iran has always had very good cooperation with the [International Atomic Energy] Agency'' and this was proof of the ''peaceful'' nature of its nuclear program.

Coinciding with fresh reports in the US regarding the absence of any evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons, the Tehran conference was important in further integrating Iran in the global disarmament movement, in tandem with the prescient insight of the late French philosopher Michel
Foucault, who once described the Islamic revolution of 1979 as destined to "bear the weight of the entire world order." Foucault's unique insight, yet to be fully understood by the majority of "Iran experts" in the West who typically pen about "Iran after possessing the bomb", provides a good prism through which to analyze Iran's self-imposed disarmament responsibility. The historic revolution has given the post-revolutionary state a transnational and "quasi-state" character that is thoroughly cosmopolitan along the lines of a (Edmund) Husserlian "world disclosing subjectivity". Following this line of thought, the outlines of Iran's

''borderline'' nuclear policy, which allows Tehran to insert itself in the global "nuclear game" and thus exert pressure on the nuclear haves to move toward disarmament and avoid proliferation activities, can be understood. In essence, this stems from a globalist view that combines strictly
national security considerations within a larger net of regional and global security, that in turn mandates Iran to take a nuclear activist role. Without the potential capability as a proto-nuclear power, Iran cannot possibly play this role on the global scene, otherwise it will be ignored as totally irrelevant. In other words, the protean value, for the sake of disarmament objectives, of Iran's latent nuclear potential and/or threat has completely bypassed Western pundits who specialize on Iran and who often reduce Iran's nuclear ambitions to a mere issue of national security. Their erroneous interpretations stem from a basic misunderstanding of the globalist motivations of Iran's "quasi-state" that are not reducible to the narrow prism of national interests. From the point of view of the NAM and its disarmament priority, Iran's "borderline" approach makes perfect sense, given keen awareness of the complex threads connecting counter-proliferation to disarmament and the rather egregious failure of the NPT to achieve a significant breakthrough on disarmament, as stipulated in Article VI.

The Tehran disarmament conference reflects an apt move in ongoing Iranian nuclear chessmanship that is inherently tied to Iran's globalized mission, to increasingly play a proactive role in the global disarmament movement irrespective of the external pressures confronting its nuclear program.
Over time, this is bound to present a genuine, albeit secondary, impediment to the proliferation activities of countries that possess nuclear weapons,

reflecting a virtuous disposition as a cosmopolitan regional power that exceeds the limits that the major powers assign to it. Those powers may have flung sanction nets at Iran over its nuclear program's
supposed sinister intentions, but the irony is that Iran is now able to play an increasingly vocal role in holding those powers back from the flight of responsibility vis-a-vis their NPT obligations to disarm.

The coercive stance of the West is not necessarily justified by international law. Reducing demands is key to making progress in negotiations with Iran.
Richard Dalton, Steen Hohwu-Christensen, Paul von Maltzahn, Guillaume Metten, Francois Nicoullaud and Roberto Toscano. West has to break deadlock with Iran. Los Angeles Times. June 13, 2011. < http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/west-has-to-breakdeadlock-with-iran-1.820722> In terms of international law,

the position of Europe and the United States is perhaps less assured than is generally believed. Basically, it is embodied in a set of resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council authorising coercive measures in case of threats to the peace.' But what constitutes the threat? Is it the enrichment of uranium [a threat?] in Iranian centrifuges? This is certainly a sensitive activity, by a sensitive country, in a
highly sensitive region. The concerns expressed by the international community are legitimate, and Iran has a moral duty, as well as a political need, to answer them. In principle, however, nothing in international law or in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty forbids the enrichment of uranium. And in Iran, this activity is submitted to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). These inspections, it is true, are constrained by a safeguards agreement dating from the 1970s. But it is also true that the

IAEA has never uncovered in Iran any attempted diversion of nuclear material to military use.
Is the threat to the peace, then, that Iran is actively attempting to build a nuclear weapon? For at least three years, the US intelligence community has discounted this hypothesis. The US director of national intelligence, James Clapper, testified in February to Congress: "We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons ... We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons ... We continue to judge that Iran's nuclear decision-making is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran."

Today, a majority of experts, even in Israel, seems to view Iran as striving to become a threshold country,' technically able to produce a nuclear weapon but abstaining from doing so for the present. Again, nothing in international law or in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty forbids such an ambition. Like Iran, several other
countries are on their way to or have already reached such a threshold but have committed not to acquire nuclear weapons. Nobody seems to bother them. We often hear that Iran's ill-will, its refusal to negotiate seriously, left our countries no other choice but to drag it to the Security Council in 2006. Here also, things are not quite that clear. Let us remember that in

2005 Iran was ready to discuss a ceiling limit for the number of its centrifuges and to maintain its rate of enrichment far below the high levels necessary for weapons. Tehran also
expressed its readiness to put into force the additional protocol that it had signed with the IAEA allowing intrusive inspections throughout Iran, even in non-declared sites. But

at that time, the Europeans and the Americans wanted to compel Iran to forsake its enrichment programme entirely. Today, Iranians assume that this is still the goal of Europe and America, and that it is for this reason that the Security Council insists on suspension of all Iranian enrichment activities. But the goal of zero centrifuges operating in Iran, permanently or temporarily,' is unrealistic, and it has heavily contributed to the present standoff.